Finally, we have started to settle into some sort of routine around here. I love a routine don't you? Knowing where I have to be on a regular basis brings me comfort in this crazy, unpredictable world. Where I live there has been multiple snow events which did nothing to help get us into a routine. It has been like this since January! Now, we are feeling the effects(minimally) of spring and the routine is new again! Remember, I told you we hadn't settled into the other routine? Yes, and now we are on to a new one. This routine is the craziest of them all for me.....

This one involves 2 kids playing sports! You know where this is going if, you have children and they play sports or are involved in other activities. Add to this, my husband working extra hours at his job and you have a perfect storm of CRAZY!!!!!!!!! Pick this one up and get the other one there, make dinner, wash the dirty uniform, sound familiar!! I say, "Calgon take...

Anyone who knows me knows that I try to be a good couponer but I really fail at it miserably. I admire the extreme couponers because I think they truly possess a gift for figuring all of that out. There are a couple of reasons I will NEVER be good at couponing. The first is that I forget to bring them with me to the store! It has actually become a joke in my house when it comes to me and the coupons. Secondly, there are very few products that my family eats or uses that have coupons. If you have ever noticed, it is not the healthiest food!!! We eats lots of fruit and veggies which don't have coupons....

Still, I like to save money at the grocery store as much as the next person. I want to share with you how I have found the ability to knock some dollars off the grocery bill WITHOUT COUPONS. 

1. Find a grocery store where you find the prices overall cheaper. This may take you a couple of weeks of shopping to figure this out. I would take a standardized list and go to each store,...

This was one of those days! Have you ever had one where it just didn't go as planned? I had a solid plan for the day or did I?

My first sign that the plan wasn't going so well was my oversleeping by 15 minutes. This may not sound like a lot but my schedule runs tight. Now, the day is starting off rushed!! I managed to get myself out the door and to work on time. The day moved along and I knew in the back of my mind what my evening was going to look like or so  i thought. It changed with the ring of the phone, my husband letting me know he wasn't going to do his end of kid pick up for the evening. Ugh....okay time to regroup. 

I had to map out in my head what was going to be most productive of my time for everyone. Our 2 high schoolers needed to be picked up along with our 5th grader. The biggest caveat here is that we live in a traffic gridlock area. Deciding who to pick up first was going to be crucial to salvaging the evening. I took a deep breath and just went on my...

I just have to ask, do you have alot of emails? I mean a lot...like more than a thousand? That was me!!! I actually had over 10,000 emails, mostly JUNK!!!!! Every time I logged in it actually began to bother me. I kept thinking I needed to make time to go through them all. But, when was I going to have that kind of time? Even if I went through 50/day it was going to take me along time. There was an overwhelmingfeeling creeping in so I decided to do something about it. Guess what I did? I deleted them ALL!!!

I felt a little queasy at first but then I decided if there was anything truly important I would probably receive another email. My mind had tricked me to believe that I couldn't get rid of these emails because they might be needed. I did take out the newest emails that were pertinent and content related and moved them to a file. I couldn't go through them all so I had to prioritize. Figuring the more recent emails might be current information I would need was what...

Did you break your resolution? It is February and New Year's was at least a month ago! You did....I'm not surprised. 25 % of New Year's resolutions are broken in the first week alone. In 6 months over half of resolutions are broken. Do you know why???

1. You weren't really committed to it in the 1st place-

Maybe you felt pressured into making a resolution so you picked anything?

Maybe you thought you'd pick something popular like working out?

It seemed like a good idea at the time without planning how you would implement the change...

The bottom line is that without commitment or without conviction you are a rowboat in the water without oars! You have to really want this resolution in order to actually achieve success. It won't happen accidentally.

Commitment=intentional=planning=implement=success
It's really 5 steps!!! So just picking a resolution only jumpstarts the process. We really believe if we ay our resolution it will happen. No, we'll end up feeling disappointed in...

So, I've been doing a little reading. Last week I read, Eat that frog by Brian Tracy. What a powerful read!! 

This brings me to challenge myself and so I challenge YOU! 
Answer this.....
What three areas of you life could use improvement  right now? 

Seems like an abstract question at first but when we sit down and really think about it, it is POWEFUL!!  So much of what we do is really not doing anything to help us, it is busy work or secondary to what we would like to achieve.  The purpose of this question is to get you to take notice of where your focus would be better served. Channeling that focus is the secret to your success.  Many of us would probably list finances, family and exercise as our top 3. If you have something different that is perfectly fine. 

Of the 3 areas which is of the greatest importance to you?

This is the frog you must eat in order to accomplish everything else. So, maybe it is financial. In order...

"When your every thought and your every action is directed to your ultimate life goals, you become unstoppable and assured of great success and happiness."  Robin Sharma

I listen to people all the time talk about their lack of motivation. I wonder if they really know what it means. It is the difference between thought and action. It's that inner fire that drives you to act! Some people have it, some have lost it temporarily and some people don't have it.

How do you get it????????
The answer lies in POSITIVITY!!!!
Think about how you feel when you are in a foul mood. You probably don't feel like doing anything. That's because your emotion has taken over and distracted you.

Positive thinking=Positive action=MOTIVATION

Happiness increases productivity. So, let's start thinking optimistically today! I'm not suggesting that optimism means you have to put on a fake smile, skip around singing happy songs because that would be....weird!
I am suggesting you begin by finding positive,...

Since we have now entered tax season (ugh!), I felt it would be useful to help you develop a paper trail. If you're like me, it can get totally out of hand!

Do you have a system? Does it allow you to easily find that particular document you need to fill out your taxes? For years, I was that person who walked into my accountant's office and always walked needing a missing document. (Grrr!) Then, I found a new one who gave me a wonderful checklist so I could actually come prepared. (what a novel idea!!)

I used the checklist I was given to set myself up for the next year because now I know exactly what I need as far as documents go. How exactly did I do it?

I started really basic. Are you ready for this? I started with a folder! I bet you thought I was going to say something so much fancier. I made it fancy by writing the tax year on the front of it! The important thing about the folder for me was keeping it in a central location, wherever the mail comes into your house....

In last week's post I talked to you about mentally de-cluttering yourself and this week I will be talking to you about physically de-cluttering. We expect a lot out of our bodies but never stop to think about how the body is being treated. It's not only athletes that need proper rest, food and workouts for top performance; we, the regular folk do too!

It all starts with SLEEP! To sleep or not to sleep that is the question for some of us. I hear you when you say, "I only need a few hours and then I am good!". To which I reply, sleep is essential whether you are 2 or 82. The question is whether you are "good" with only a few hours of sleep? Could you actually be better? Imagine, if you had a little more sleep how amazing you could really be? Sleep is that magical time when the body repairs itself from all of the abuse it faces all day long. Studies have shown that this is the only time our brain gets to rest. We all know that getting the right amount of sleep can make...

Fulfillment is that which we all desire but may not know we do. This comes from deep within your soul in. In order to create a life of genuine happiness we need to realize that beyond our skin, beyond our egos, beyond our accomplishments, job titles and relationships is our true self. It is multi-dimensional and pure.

It then become essential to sort out what fulfillment is between our ego and soul. The soul is pure and the ego is tainted which makes it easy to be misled.  Here is an example:
Ego's idea of fulfillment: I measure myself by accomplishments
or
Soul's voice of fulfillment: I don't measure myself by any external standard
Do you see the difference? The soul is not about "me" or "I", unlike the ego.
I first read about this from Deepak Chopra and quickly identified the ego voice a lot in myself. What I also understood is that ego relies solely on the external which I can't control. It's about who likes me, what the people and things around me dictate. This is precisely...